Miller v College Of Policing

[yourhairiswinterfire]

Judgement will be here on Monday, finally. It's been about 9 months since the appeal.

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1471399029321969666

This was a good article by Sarah Phillimore if anyone needs a recap.

thecritic.co.uk/fair-cops-case-in-court/

So nauticant for a lay person like me, is it that they can still record 'hate incidents', but they have to justify them on the grounds of them being hateful? And as you point out, they would have to go through about 24,000 annually?

What are the implications of that?

I mean, are they required to assess them all, or can they pick and choose? Because that would still allow for massive bias.

What good news. Well done Harry (and Sarah P and all the rest) for pursuing this.

My assumption Datun would be that if the College of Policing revised their Guidance so that there had to be a positive assessment for hate before an incident could be recorded there's a good chance this wouldn't be unlawful in the eyes of the Court of Appeal. The tricky thing is how half-arsed such revision could be.

The CoP might try their arm and go for a figleaf "tightening" of the Guidance that would have little impact on the amount of extra work this would lumber the Police with.

@nauticant

I thought GiantKitten was being rather robust over Mrs B so I thought I'd have a look for myself:

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1472838207469494272

Those messages are quite something.

Wow!

Oh Wow!!

Who recorded that

Those messages from MrsB are ever so kind aren't they.

On any objective view those messages are hateful and malicious and would surely reach the bar for prosecution.

I know people aren't allowed to name names on this thread, but do Harry and Sarah know who Honey Badger/Mrs B is? Surely you have the right to know the name of the person making accusations against you?

I know people aren't allowed to name names on this thread

Is that right? Why not? Why does the author of those clearly hateful digital messages need anonymity?

Bizarre, isn't it? Every time something like this goes to court, the behaviour of the one insisting they've been wronged is far, far more extreme and obviously unacceptable than anything the one being prosecuted said or did.

I shall be interested to see how they revise this guidance. However the warning shot is now there that if the person recorded takes them to court, they should be able to clearly justify why it was recorded and in what sense it was unacceptable - and difference in political view is not it. This is the trouble with 'good chap' policy, that relies on judgement, interpretation and everyone involved being a reasonable person.

@MidsomerMurmurs

I know people aren't allowed to name names on this thread

Is that right? Why not? Why does the author of those clearly hateful digital messages need anonymity?

That's a good question! I don't know. Perhaps there is a risk of misidentification. But I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) that Mrs B/Honey Badger is one of the usual offenders.

The CoP revised their Guidance after the High Court proceedings and I believe the Court of Appeal case was against the original Guidance. However, I'd put money on thie CoP having not revised the Guidance in ways that would solve the problems the Court of Appeal found with them. In fact, having gone to check:

12. In October 2020, after therefore the handing down of the judgment under appeal, the Guidance was fully replaced by a new Hate Crimes Authorised Professional Practice (the Revised Guidance). The Revised Guidance retains the same essential features of the Guidance, including recording non-crime hate incidents, based on complainant perception, but its contents contain some amendments to the Guidance. These include a (stronger) warning against police taking a disproportionate response to reports of a non-hate crime incident, the inclusion of a link to the judgment under appeal and detailed further guidance on how police should contact people “accused” of non-crime hate incidents. We received very brief submissions from the parties on the implications of those amendments. We were also provided after the hearing with a table comparing the Guidance and the Revised Guidance. Unless stated otherwise, this judgment concerns the Guidance as promulgated in 2014.

I'm in awe of Harry Miller ( @HarryTheOwl ) and Sarah Philimore ( @Spero ) undertaking this challenge. That they succeeded has made me so fucking relieved that I cried. I came to this country and stayed for education and freedom of expression. We must never, ever take it for granted.

As for the Mrs B revelations, I really do wonder what connections with the police exist, because something stinks here.

I cannot understand how Mrs B is allowed to write such vile things and yet get taken seriously when they report 'misgenderings' or whatever nonsense they view as transphobic. It's absolutely disgusting and stinks to high heavens. Much like Maya's Scouts complainant is allowed call women vile slurs and yet is allowed play 'the victim'.

How on earth can women have any trust in the police when they pander to males who behave like that and persecute women for saying that sex is real?

Does anyone much more knowledgeable about the Law than me (i.e. practically anybody!) know if, or how, or to what extent this marvellous ruling (so many thanks to Harry and Sarah for this magnificent effort) might impact and hopefully help Ceri Black..?

(P.S. Thanks again - bloody brilliant Xmas present!)

@MidsomerMurmurs

I know people aren't allowed to name names on this thread

Is that right? Why not? Why does the author of those clearly hateful digital messages need anonymity?

🤷‍♀️ Who knows, probably in case of misidentification or something. Although if you've been around here long enough ( since t'were all fields) you can recognise who it is. Linguistic tics give it away or someone is copying those tics to make it seem like a certain person. It reads too well to be copying but I'm not an expert.

Anyhooo fabulous news, I was not expecting good news on this so I'm very happy.
I dont have the time to trawl through the judgment now, it is nearly Christmas after all. So i await highlights from some lovely women on here.
Here we should all have some , or other drink of choice.

So relieved to hear this and awed thanks to Faircop.

I'd assume not much directly CompleteGinasaur. Harry Miller's case was about non-crime hate incidents and the impact on free speech while, as far as I know, Ceri Black is facing charges where the claim is there's been an actual crime, for example under the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

There might be an indirect effect with Police forces waking up to the fact that throwing their weight around, seemingly in a politically motivated way, against little people now carries risks for the Police. (And the relevant prosecuting authorities.)

@nauticant

My assumption Datun would be that if the College of Policing revised their Guidance so that there had to be a positive assessment for hate before an incident could be recorded there's a good chance this wouldn't be unlawful in the eyes of the Court of Appeal. The tricky thing is how half-arsed such revision could be.

The CoP might try their arm and go for a figleaf "tightening" of the Guidance that would have little impact on the amount of extra work this would lumber the Police with.

Okay, thanks for that.

But does tightening the guidance mean that they can pick, say, stuff that is reported as transphobic, and just assess those complaints, and just not record others that are racist or homophobic because they haven't 'assessed' them?

So they get say 100 different complaints, and they only look at those that have the word transphobia in them, and then assess them against the tightened guidelines? And don't bother even recording the rest.

Because, as you say, they can't possibly assess them all.

Because it's my understanding, that up until now, they haven't assessed any of them. Whatever someone complains about gets written down.

This, like the Maya case has greater implications. The nastiness of Mrs B and Honeybadger will be causing so many wtf's in all sorts of areas and one wonders whether Denton's might be having a bit of a re-think . Those 'be kind' supporters, might just be a bit open mouthed when they see this, if they bother looking

I think they might be able to find a way through that would involve only recording incidents that they have assessed and binning those they haven't. However, as you imply, this could result in a selection being based on political considerations. Which would mean that if this came to light then there'd have to be another case going to court because on something like a failure of impartiality or discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic.

There's lots of mischief the Police can get up to and as Harry Miller's case shows, it takes an unusual situation and then a vast commitment of years of time, effort, and money to hold them to account. We really have put a great deal of trust in the Police to behave properly and legally.

Fabulous result! Well done Harry!

I think this will spawn a plethora of spin-off civil law cases. I wonder if some astute firm of solicitors is considering the opportunities presented by a huge class-action against the College of Policing and individual Police Forces. There are also GDPR issues, as any data maintained on 'non-crime hate incidents' breaches near enough every Principal of GDPR. So the Information Commissioner (ICO) can-be-engaged with good cause.

The judgement itself is a stunner. There's no room for doubt, no ambiguity. The Colleges' legal arguments were trashed, the previous Judge rubbished, and now the revelations presented in the Honey Badgers Tweets reveal the Police to have been biased and perhaps even corrupted in their efforts to ignore a serial online abuser in an effort to stamp-out alternate opinions.

@nauticant

I'd assume not much directly CompleteGinasaur. Harry Miller's case was about non-crime hate incidents and the impact on free speech while, as far as I know, Ceri Black is facing charges where the claim is there's been an actual crime, for example under the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

There might be an indirect effect with Police forces waking up to the fact that throwing their weight around, seemingly in a politically motivated way, against little people now carries risks for the Police. (And the relevant prosecuting authorities.)

Thanks nauticant. I had a suspicion that I was missing something fairly obvious about the ruling's relevance to that case when there was no comment about it - someone on here would have noticed it! Was niggling at me, though. Hopefully, as you say, the indirect effect may be to make the plod a little more cautious about where, and how hard, they bring down the size 12's.. We can but hope..

@nauticant

I thought GiantKitten was being rather robust over Mrs B so I thought I'd have a look for myself:

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1472838207469494272

Those messages are quite something.

Indeed. And very telling. Particularly the frequent use of the term "gobshite".

Didn't the original Judge also describe Mrs B's complaint as "the outer reaches of rationality"?

Huge congratulations to @HazzaTheOwl! Merry Christmas to you and Mrs Owl.

I actually feel rather sorry for PC Gul. He has come in for a considerable amount of ridicule for acting as his superiors instructed him.